Never far off the breadline at the best of times, Eritrea will need substantial food aid.

ECONOMIST: Eritrea and Ethiopia at doubtful peace

At first sight it seems self-evident that falling incomes, rising prices and a squeeze on welfare will mean larger numbers find themselves below the breadline.

BBC: It��s not the 'squeezed middle', it��s the poor

But if, instead of thinking about the breadline, we consider what level of income is needed for an acceptable standard of living, the debate changes.

BBC: Do you live above the bread, butter and jam line?

Otherwise, even a return to brisk economic growth (something that scarcely looks likely right now) will not be enough to rescue them from the breadline.

ECONOMIST: Joblessness in America

These other tools, however, have their critics and criticism might just be too high a price to pay for saving millions of Americans from the breadline.

FORBES: Demand Curves Slope Downward: Fed Policy Edition

"It's clearly an estate that's on the breadline, " he said.

BBC: 'I often cry myself to sleep'

The life of single lamb or young llama can make a huge difference to a family already on the breadline, and as water gets scarcer, villagers will become ever more dependent on tourism for their income.

BBC: Trekking Peru��s Santa Cruz trail

Mr Duncan Smith dismissed the petition as a "complete stunt" and told his local Wanstead and Woodford Guardian he had been unemployed twice so "I know what it is like to live on the breadline".

BBC: UK Politics

"London is the only region characterised by high percentages of both breadline poor and asset wealthy households and by a very small, in relative terms, percentage of households that are in the middle, " the report found.

BBC: Londoners 'are most lonely in UK'